


More than Two

by SailorChibi



Series: Little Q verse [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Age Play, Cuddling, Daddy!James, Decompressing, Diapers, Dummies, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Hugs, Infantilism, Little Headspace, No Angst, Post-Skyfall, Stress, a lighter side to james bond, date 007 you have to take 006, i don't make those rules, just fluff, little!Q, mostly just confused alec, nappies, non sexual age play, non sexual infantilism, one that alec is intrigued by, possible future daddy!alec, protecting the world is a hard job, q will shortly have 2 00 agents wrapped around his pinkie, so much stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 05:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/pseuds/SailorChibi
Summary: Alec returns to England and is very surprised, if somewhat intrigued, by the different relationship between Q and James.





	More than Two

**Author's Note:**

> Someone commissioned me to write a sequel to the first fic in this series, and include Alec. It's been a while since I wrote any James Bond fics!

“I wish you luck. You’re going to need it.”

Alec glanced up in surprise, pausing midway through reaching for the Quartermaster’s door. “Luck? I’m a double-oh. I don’t need luck.”

Moneypenny’s flat look expressed more than words ever could. She came close enough to snag one of the mugs he was holding, wrinkling her nose when she found coffee as opposed to tea. “Q’s in a bad mood. I think he’s sick. He _hates_ being sick. You’re going to need more luck than I can give you, at any rate.”

“I’ll be fine,” Alec said confidently. He’d been deep undercover for the past three years, so he’d missed all of the excitement with the new boffin. The first person he’d made contact with after returning to London was James, and the resulting conversation had left Alec very curious about MI6’s new Quartermaster. He’d never heard James sound this infatuated – hadn’t even known it was _possible_ for the great James Bond to fall in love. This Q had to be something special.

She snorted. “Just be ready to duck.”

Alec frowned at her back and reached against for the doorknob. It gave beneath his hand, swinging open and letting a blast of chill seep through. He shivered. It was always cold in Q-branch because of the computers, but Q’s office was a bit like stepping into the Arctic. He was suddenly glad he favoured long sleeve shirts even when he wasn’t on a mission.

“What?” someone – presumably Q – snarled.

Undaunted, Alec held up the mug. “I brought you tea and have instructions to make sure you get to your flat in one piece.”

“I’m busy. Go away.”

“I would, but James threatened to shoot me if I did. He claims he’s become good enough not to miss. Which, I have my doubts. He’s missed me before, you know. Then again, I’m not sure he was really trying,” Alec rambled, stepping into the office. It was a large space, but filled to the brim with what appeared to be spare computer parts and other bits he couldn’t identify. He nudged at one part carefully with his toe.

“That could explode,” Q said without turning away from his desk.

“So can I,” Alec said cheerfully, but he did leave off the part. He opted to step closer to the most dangerous thing in the office, setting the mug of herbal tea on the desk. As per James’s instructions, he poured in two tablespoons of honey.

“I don’t want tea,” Q said. “I want you to go away.”

“I believe we had this conversation. Bullets, James, my body?”

Q finally looked at him. In the glare from his monitor, his face looked pale and wan. “You must be 006,” he said in tones of deep weariness.

“What gave it away?”

“No one talks about Bond in such familiar tones but me.” Q sighed. “Did he send you here to torment me? He’s on a bloody vacation!”

“Yeah, I’m not real sure why he sent me,” Alec lied. That had been true until now, when he could see the weariness in the lines of Q’s face. James had no choice about going to Scotland to finally deal with Skyfall; the Scottish government had been threatening to declare the area off-limits and seize it. Alec wasn’t wholly sure whether they could do that, but James wasn’t willing to take the risk. He’d gone to sort things out and do something with the bullet-ridden remains of his childhood home.

He had told Alec, over the phone, that he didn’t want to leave Q. Something about Q not handling the unusual burst of hot weather that most of Britain had been suffering through. It all sounded odd to Alec, but James had done him enough favours in the past that he was prepared to throw Q over his shoulder and carry him out of MI6 if needbe. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d witnessed him kidnapping someone, after all.

Q glowered like he knew that was a lie, but – much to Alec’s surprise – stood up from his desk. He ignored the mug of tea in in favour of sweeping past Alec and out into Q branch. Alec followed, shoving his hands in his pockets and watching as Q darted around the room like a moth torn between lanterns, visiting every member of the branch. He spent a few seconds with each, then stopped to confer with R for several minutes, before nodding at her.

“You can tell Bond I’m heading home,” he announced, walking past Alec into the office. “You are dismissed, 006.”

Alec leaned against the door. “Actually, I always stay with James while I’m in London…” he hinted.

“You have nowhere else to stay?” Q asked, sounding unimpressed, pulling a laptop bag out from under the desk.

“I could stay on the street,” Alec said thoughtfully. “Last time I “died”,” he made quotation marks with his fingers, “MI6 took the liberty of selling off my flat and putting my things into storage at James’s behest. When I returned, I was sent out on another undercover mission before I had the chance to get another flat.”

Q straightened. “They sent you out on a mission back-to-back?”

Ah yes, James had told him this too. Apparently this Q was protective of the double-oh’s. James seemed to think it was adorable. Alec thought it was hilarious. “It was necessary. And I’ve got some downtime now, but it does leave me without a place to stay tonight.”

“Oh, very well,” Q grumbled. “Come along, then.”

Victory. Alec refrained from smiling too broadly, sensing that might actually change Q’s mind, and accompanied Q up to the higher levels of MI6. A car was waiting for them. Q flinched as they stepped out into the heat, not that Alec could blame him: the temperatures were in the low thirties, hot and damp with the sense of oncoming rain. Alec wasn’t overly bothered by it; he’d been undercover in a country with summers hotter than this.

But Q looked rather like a bedraggled kitten within seconds, hair plastered to his head and a sulky expression on his face. They climbed into the car just as the first drop of rain hit the ground. Alec turned his head to look out the windows, watching as more swiftly followed. The temperatures would cool dramatically within an hour or two while it rained, and then when the sun came out it would shoot back up.

“Perhaps James had the right idea, visiting Scotland,” he obeserved. “You should’ve gone with him.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, you’re dating for one thing,” Alec said. “Or is that still secret?”

Q shrugged. “It’s not, not a secret,” he said blandly, and offered up no more details.

When they arrived at the flat, Q unlocked the door and knelt to greet his cats. Alec edged around the caterwauling orange lumps of fur and swept his gaze over the flat, automatically checking to be certain it was safe. The flat was otherwise quiet, and there were no signs that anything had been moved. He didn’t take his hand off his gun until Q had stood up and closed the door behind them.

“I’ll add you to the security features later. Just let me know before you leave the flat,” Q said. “No matter what exit you use, or else you’ll be in for a nasty shock.”

He hadn’t flipped any switches or pushed any buttons, but Alec took him at his word and moved away from the door. It was a large flat, with clean sight lines. He appreciated that and knew that James, at least, had purchased it with that in mind. Q showed him down the hallway and pointed him into a guest bedroom, which was small but sufficient. Alec took his shoes off and sat down on the bed.

“You don’t have a suitcase,” Q said, as though just realizing.

“I’m a double-oh. I travel light,” Alec replied. He plastered a teasing smile on his face. “So tell me, what do you and James do to relax around here? Anything I’d be interested in?” He winked.

“No.”

The blunt response was intriguing. Most people would either stutter and blush in embarrassment, or be coy and flirt back. Alec tipped his chin up. “Care to try something interesting?”

“Do you always flirt with James’s partners?”

“When he has them. Most of them time we’re both single, but we’ve shared before,” Alec said, trying to remember the last time James had been well and truly attached. There had been that girl – what was her name? Vesper or something ridiculous like that – but that hadn’t lasted long. James had been single since, until he began dating Q. There had to be something about the boffin that had caught James’s interest so thoroughly, but perhaps it made sense that it wasn’t sex. Like Alec, James got more sex than he knew what to do with.

Q sighed. “Yes, so I’ve been warned.”

“Who warned you?” Alec wanted to know.

“Moneypenny. Her exact words were ‘date 007 and you’re dating 006’.” Q smiled wryly. “I see she wasn’t wrong. James has my confidence. I won’t tell you anything, but if you can get it out of him…” He trailed off, still smiling, and nodded at Alec as he stepped back out and out of the room.

“I’ve got things out of James before!” Alec called after him, though admittedly not very often. Like any double-oh worth their salt, James was impervious to torture, sexual persuasion, blackmail, bribery, getting drunk or just general manipulation: if he didn’t want Alec to know, Alec wouldn’t find out. He laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering what it would take to get the truth of the matter out of James. The easiest answer would be to pry it out of Q, but he suspected that would be far easier said than done.

It took some time, but eventually he fell asleep mulling the matter over; he'd been up for almost thirty hours at that point, which, while not even close to the record of how long he'd gone without sleep, was long enough that his body would feel better for it. Normally he would've had a hard time sleeping with someone else in the flat beside James, but much to his surprise he was able to drift off quickly even knowing that Q was close by.

He woke sometime in the early morning, body tumbling out of bed before his mind was fully conscious, pointing his gun at the door. Alec blinked away the remains of sleep and realized that there was no one else in the room. The door was still shut. He straightened and crossed the room in three long strides, listening. Very slowly, he eased the door open and slipped into the darkened corridor. The only light came from a small fixture in the bathroom. There was no movement and, aside from the sound of his own breathing, he couldn't hear anything.

Curiosity and concern drove him to sweep the flat, making sure that there was no one else around. Q's cats were both sleeping on the sofa. One lifted her head and looked at him with eyes that shone gold, tracking his progress around the kitchen. The other flicked her ear once or twice, but otherwise didn't deign Alec worthy of attention. That was fine with him. He wasn't sure what had woke him up, but he was certain that the cause of it hadn't been the cats. The last room he checked was the other door in the hallway that was shut, presumably Q's and James's. 

Alec paused outside the door to listen for a moment His hearing was excellent, and he could just make out the quiet sound of someone crying. Concern increasing, he knocked. "Q? Are you awake?"

The crying immediately stopped. Then Q's shaky voice called out, "Yes. Do you need something?"

"I thought I heard something."

There was a noticeable pause before Q said, "I dropped my laptop. I'm sorry."

"On your foot?"

"No."

"Then why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying," Q said.

"Open the door and prove it to me."

"I'm fine! Please go away!" Q's voice broke in the middle of the word 'away'.

"Q, open the door!" Alec insisted. He was nearly at the point of trying to break it down when the lock finally popped free and the door opened. He didn't wait for Q to open it all the way, instead muscling his way in. Ignoring Q's squeak of surprise, he held his gun up and quickly searched the room. He didn't stop until he'd checked under the bed, behind the curtains, outside the window, and inside the closet. He swept his eyes across the bed, noticing the stuffed toy tangled up in the covers, but saw no signs that someone else had been in the room recently.

"Are you done?" Q said. Alec turned to look at him. The room was dark aside from the moonlight that pooled in through the open curtains. The silvery light caught the tear tracks on Q's face. He looked... he looked _young_ , Alec thought, wondering if he needed to revise his initial opinion of Q's age. The oddly childish pyjamas, soft and fuzzy and blue, didn't help.

"Yes," Alec said, holstering his gun. "Why are you crying?"

Q flushed, hastily rubbing the sleeve of his pyjamas over his face. "I'm fine. It's nothing."

Alec gave him a sceptical look. "You're not dying, are you? Only James would kill me if you died when he wasn't here."

"For heaven's sake. I'm not dying. I had a nightmare, that's all!" Q said sharply. "I must have cried out. That's probably what woke you. Now please, go away."

It didn't take a double-oh to know that something was off, but it was clear he wasn't going to get anymore from Q. Alec obeyed, leaving the room. The door swung shut and the lock engaged immediately. He listened, hoping to hear something else, but Q was quiet. Perhaps he'd gone back to bed, but Alec didn't think so. He stood there for a few seconds, thinking, and then went back into the kitchen. It was the furthest away from Q's room that he could get without leaving the apartment, which he didn't feel comfortable doing. He took out his mobile and flicked through until he got to the right number. It barely had the chance to ring before it was answered.

"Bond."

"Trevelyan," Alec answered. "Alpha-Charlie-Tango-Omega-9-7-4-November-Uniform-1-0-5-7."

"November-Whiskey-Foxtrot-8-6-5-2-Mike-Juliet-Lima-0-0-2," James replied. "Why are you calling me at 4am, Alec?"

Alec relaxed. "Your boyfriend is crying."

"What?" James immediately sounded alert. "What do you mean?"

"Something woke me up. I swept the flat and found nothing. First Q said he dropped his laptop, then he said he'd had a nightmare," Alec said. "But he was definitely crying."

"Did you happen to notice a toy -"

" - On the bed?" Alec interrupted. "Yes. A kitten of some sort."

James swore quietly. "I was hoping this wouldn't happen," he muttered, more to himself than to Alec. "I'm on my way back."

"Your vacation," Alec began.

"Sod the bloody vacation. I'm miserable here anyway. I'll be back by sun-up."

James clicked off and Alec shook his head, ending the call. Q probably wouldn't be happy that he'd interfered, but at least this meant Alec wouldn't have to worry about the situation. He couldn't say he was surprised by James's decision to return: out of all the double-ohs, James was probably the biggest worrier of them all. Within a couple of hours, whatever was bothering Q would be sorted - and Alec would have the opportunity to see them together in action, and perhaps piece together what was so unusual about their relationship. He smiled to himself and went back to bed.

He wasn't awake to hear James come in, but when Alec woke up again about four hours later he assumed James was there. He pulled himself out of the bed and, rubbing at the scruff that had grown along his jaw, returned to the kitchen. He stopped short in the doorway. There wasn't much that could shock a double-oh, but the sight of James sitting at the kitchen table with Q in his lap would do it. James was wearing jeans and a plain black shirt. Q, on the other hand, was wearing a nappy and little else. He was curled up against James, eyes shut, blue dummy in his mouth and stuffed toy in his arms. James had a wet cloth pressed against Q's forehead.

"Come in but be quiet," James whispered, pressing a finger to his lips. "I just got him to fall asleep."

Alec obeyed, sinking into one of the chairs as the pieces slotted together in his mind. He'd come across many things in his time as a double-oh. This wasn't the first time he'd run into age play, though he never would've considered it for James and Q. "Is this sexual?" he asked bluntly.

"No," James said, looking amused by the question. He shifted Q a little, sliding the cloth around to dab at Q's neck. "Poor thing. The heat is so hard on him."

Alec barely spared a glance for Q, too busy looking at his best friend. "So you're what," his mouth curved and he fought hard not to laugh, "a daddy?"

"Oh, fuck you, Alec," James said without any real heat. "I like it, alright? It's the best way I've found to unwind that doesn't include alcohol or beating someone black and blue. And it's good for Q. Sometimes it's the only way I can pry him away from his bloody computers."

"I could see that," Alec said, recalling how reluctant Q had been to leave MI6. 

James shrugged the shoulder Q wasn't huddled against. "I don't care if you tease me, but you're not to say anything to Q." His voice shifted, eyes brightening with threat, and Alec lifted a hand.

"I won't. You have my word. It's odd, but I've seen far odder. Probably the hardest thing is imagining you with an ounce of maternal instinct."

"Paternal instinct, and it's a work in progress." James sighed. "If I were better at it, I would've seen how close Q was to his headspace and not left."

"Why didn't you take him with you?"

"I asked, but he wouldn't come."

"So ask again, now that he's in his headspace," said Alec, leaning forward. He watched Q for a moment. "Wait. How old is he?"

"It varies. Right now, maybe four or a bit younger. He's been going younger lately," James added with a faint frown. "I'm not sure why, and I haven't had the chance to ask. Stress, maybe. God knows that we both have enough of it."

Alec put his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands. "It's hard to imagine you with a baby."

"Like I said, work in progress. You know I'm not good with actual kids, but Q is different." There was something absurdly soft in James's face as he looked down at Q. "This is... it's simple. Easy. Nothing else in my life can be defined by those terms."

That was fair. No one would call the life of a double-oh agent easy, and James's had been more fraught than most. Alec knew better than most what it was like to have those days where it felt like the world was vibrating, and all you wanted was just a few seconds of peace. At one time alcohol or sex had been enough, but the older he got - and, he suspected, the older James got - the less effective those methods were.

He suddenly realized that he was jealous, in a way. The only person he'd ever come home to was James, and their relationship was nothing like the... dare Alec say it... _sweet_ affection that James was displaying right now. He found himself wondering what that kind of trust would be like. The Quartermaster had to be a special man indeed, to have fostered this kind of relationship with a double-oh in just over a year's time.

As though hearing Alec's thoughts, James said, "I think I'll just take him along. Q needs the vacation. He won't protest too hard if we drive." He glanced up at Alec. "Want to come?"

"To Scotland?"

"Why not? You love Skyfall more than I do."

Alec cocked his head. "You just want help minding your boffin when you're off doing other things."

James's smile was quick. "As always, you see through me," he said, eyes alight with humour, and chuckled. The sound, or maybe the movement of his chest, woke Q, who lifted his head and peered around sleepily like a baby bird looking out of the nest for the first time. With his glasses sitting crooked on his nose, even Alec had to admit that Q had a certain charm.

"Hello," he said, smiling at Q.

Q blinked at him but didn't speak. He did move the dummy around in his mouth, like maybe he was thinking of talking but couldn't think of the right words to say. He didn't frown or glare nearly as much as he did when he wasn't in his headspace, and Alec made up his mind. It would be an odd trip, but that didn't mean it would be a bad one. He'd get the chance to see more of this strange little relationship, at any rate.

"I'll come," he said to James.

"I thought you would," James said. He ducked his head, murmuring to Q, "There now, Love. We're all going to go on a trip together. Won't that be fun?"

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://tsuki-chibi.tumblr.com/).


End file.
